Artificial intelligence emerged as a powerful creative force at the 19th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2026, where a curated section titled ‘The AI Films’ showcased international productions blending technology and storytelling across history, mythology, personal memory and cinematic experimentation.

The selection demonstrated how filmmakers were using AI as a creative tool rather than a replacement for human imagination, enabling them to explore narratives and visual styles that would be difficult to achieve through conventional filmmaking methods, according to a statement out late last week by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Among the highlights was ‘Legends – The Eternal Flame of Mewar’ by Deepak Vijay, which follows a lone bard across the Aravalli hills as he narrates the story of Mewar from Bappa Rawal to Maharana Pratap. Laurent Cliquet’s ‘The Screenwriter’ offered an intimate look into the psychological pressures of the creative process through the perspective of a writer.

Xuan Li’s ‘The Star Shepherd’, inspired by a UNICEF visit to Malawi, used felt-animation techniques to tell a story about human connection, while Aksht Verma’s ‘Kishkindha: Van Katha’ drew from multiple Puranas to recreate the conflicts and politics of the ancient Vanara kingdom.

Another notable entry, ‘Stonewall, The Making of’ by Talya Lotan, blurred the line between documentary and fiction by chronicling the production of an unmade film about a Civil War general through interviews and staged historical sequences.

The programme also featured Karsh Jhaveri’s ‘The Act of Killing Dreams’, which examined the clash between artistic tradition and emerging AI-driven creativity, and Mark Wachholz’s ‘The Cinema That Never Was’, a meditation on lost film histories created through generative techniques.

Rajesh Bhatia and Bharat Arora’s ‘The Echo Monastery’ followed a grieving Ladakhi woman’s journey through memory and silence in the mountains.

Rounding out the section was ‘The Legend of Birsa Munda’ by Samresh Shrivastav, an AI-assisted animated biographical film revisiting the historic Ulgulan resistance against colonial rule.

Together, the films offered audiences a glimpse into evolving filmmaking practices, demonstrating how AI can be harnessed to bring deeply human stories to the screen.